HYDERABAD:
The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) is toying with the idea of converting grounds of educational institutions into parking lots in a bid to tackle the traffic congestion in the twin cities.

Anticipating some opposition from private educational institutions in allowing vehicle parking on their grounds, the corporation is presently concentrating on converting the open places available with the Government schools into parking lots. The school authorities are being assured that the revenue generated through paid parking lots could be shared between the educational institutions and the corporation.

Traffic congestion

Lack of parking space, which is forcing motorists to park their vehicles on roads, is identified as one of the major factors contributing to the congestion, which in turn is leading to reduction in speed and ultimately in wastage of thousands of kilo litres of fuel. Presently, the average cruising speed on the twin cities roads is 13 kmph, while it should be a minimum of 25 kmph, say authorities.

The low cost pre-paid parking facility introduced by the MCH had only contributed to unexpected problems, with a majority of the businessmen paying a pittance for parking their personal vehicles throughout the day. This has forced the authorities to contemplate levy of parking fee for every two hours and dispense with the system of issue of pre-paid parking cards.

More parking places

In addition to making use of the open places like the school grounds for parking, authorities have also identified 30 more parking places in addition to the existing 90 parking lots. Parking of vehicles in these new 30 lots will begin very shortly, according to the MCH Additional Commissioner G. Ravi Babu.

Though no decision was taken in respect of the quantum of parking fee to be collected for every two hours, the authorities are also mulling the possibility of introducing parking ticket vending machines in the twin cities. These automatic coin-box vending machines have already been installed in some places in Bangalore recently. The motorist is expected to drop coins depending on the time he is expecting to park the vehicle and leave the parking ticket on the dashboard of the vehicle. If the police find that the vehicle is parked beyond the permitted timing, penalty will be levied.

The machine, each costing about Rs. 3 lakhs, could also generate additional income as advertisement space could sold be also, says Mr. Ravi Babu.